quartet1977

thanks for sharing the work in progress! as a helper here, i'm a bit worried that Time Vault SA might put us out of business. can't stand in the way of progress, i suppose. looking forward to updates if/when you start pursuing this more.

Mission Passers (1.03 MB) - This Code Tool serves as a replacement for the original game's SCM. Those familiar with Time Vault already know how this works. Walk into the starting sphere of any mission that it supports, and you are automaticaly credited as passing the mission, including all storyline progressions that go with it. Becaus I'm human, there's a risk that I've overlooked something that will impact the way the rest of your game progresses. Most anything that could occur this way will be fixable, but it needs to be reported. Right now, it only supports the mission Cesar Vialpando. Active development is not implied.Rebirth v1 (

Demarest

Bump. Wanted to ask everybody what the hardest missions are around these parts. I will probably be saving things like the schools and the races for last. Oh, and I've decided that since SA upgraded to automated cutscene management, there's no reason why I can't preserve cutscenes in a mission. That way people passing missions this way can still be up to date with the storyline. Thanks for the input.

pdescobar

Some other "priorities" for this would be Madd Dogg and Tanker Commander since those are two of the missions that get rendered impossible by the Peds Riot cheat (I don't remember if there are others.) Stowaway and Wrong Side of the Tracks are fairly often problematic for people too.

Demarest

File updated to now cover OG Loc, Wrong Side Of The Tracks, Tanker Commander, Stowaway, and Madd Dogg. I also fixed an error I made in the last update by NOT including the cutscene for N.O.E. If anybody finds bugs like that or any bugs, let me know. It's all fixable

@San Anzeas: Is something about the way I did it the first time malfunctioning?

Demarest

File updated to now support Just Business, Photo Opportunity, Robbing Uncle Sam, Wear Flowers In Your Hair, and End Of The Line.

@m4: Your av, title, name, sig... I like your style. But just so you realize, there's no difference between Mission Passers and SNP. They're both cheats. Just one is less of an effort for you and others

@quartet: End Of The Line is a 3 parter, not 2. I thought that if I just left you there after each part, some people might get confused as to what (if anything) just happened since there is no music or message or anything. Still, I tried to satisfy your request by putting CJ away from the mission marker so that the person could choose to take on each section separately. And it worked exactly that way in my test bed. Once it was grafted into original code though and tested on a real save, they strung together without effort. The sniffer thread is most likely responsible. I gave it a once over and couldn't readily figure out how it was doing that. I didn't dig too much into it though because I'm tired and I honestly think it's better that way anyways. But I tried. Credits still play and all that.

radioman

Two missions that I find hard are: "Body Harvest"-The one where you have to steal the combine harvester, and the flight school and also the tags are hard, so can you make a code tool for that? By the way Good Job on the code tool for san andreas.

Mutha4ka

@m4: Your av, title, name, sig... I like your style. But just so you realize, there's no difference between Mission Passers and SNP. They're both cheats. Just one is less of an effort for you and others

Hehe, cheers. Okay, you talked me into it.

Well, I have another reason too...I just beat End of the line after several long-winded attempts and had the game crash just after CJ says "I'm fittin' to hit the streets."

[edit] Aww, the link's timing out for me. I'm just not having the luck today. Aha. Link works now. Downloading. Btw. Although I'd love to take credit for my av & sig, they're not my work. If the av tickles you like it did me though, check out the rest of the Record Store Cats.

Mutha4ka

Okay, just as a quick follow-up by way of bug-testing contribution;I notice that I only have 120 rounds left in my SMGs, where previously I had 1700.

I understand that this may be in the interest of authenticity but thought it best to mention, in case it's an oversight and may cause a problem for the game if a player has less than 1500 rounds or whatever.

If it's intentional then don't mind me. Just tryin' to help a playa out.

[edit] Ah no, I see what's happened. It's switched my Tec-9s for Micro SMGs, so it's defaulted back to a standard clip size. Might want to look at that...

-/TNT\-

Dem, you shouldn't ask which missions are difficult and which are not. Everybody has a different style and approach things differently. On some of the easiest missions where you had to take back the hoods when Sweet was out of prison I kept losing just because some idiot ped were getting scared and were running CJ's bro over, while other missions like Vertical Bird are just difficult because the setting is different from the usual missions. Personally I think you should make the mission passer available for all missions, even the Big Smoke and Sweet and Kendl ones (if you wan't to test the new stuff a scm has like PLPyntons blow me away mod it is boring having to escape the Ballas again and again)

PS: When I play SA I have 4 programs running alongside it. Pizzadox for the unlimited sprint, health, ammo, oxygen etc. , a car spawner, the teleporter and the CamHack (cuz when I play 1280x1024 CJ gains a few inches and loses some pounds ). With the first three progs you can pass most of the missions easily, as well as test modified cars without scanning the city for them .

Mutha4ka

Dem, you shouldn't ask which missions are difficult and which are not. Everybody has a different style and approach things differently. On some of the easiest missions where you had to take back the hoods when Sweet was out of prison I kept losing just because some idiot ped were getting scared and were running CJ's bro over, while other missions like Vertical Bird are just difficult because the setting is different from the usual missions. Personally I think you should make the mission passer available for all missions, even the Big Smoke and Sweet and Kendl ones (if you wan't to test the new stuff a scm has like PLPyntons blow me away mod it is boring having to escape the Ballas again and again)

I think he's probably working towards doing them all but just doing them in order of most requested so that more people can get on with their games.

Fwiw, it's easy enough to just use this file to pass a mission, then save and exit the game, enabling you to reinsert your original main.scm to carry on with the rest of the game as normal, in case anyone was wondering.Otherwise, you won't get to play any of the missions that it supports - you'll just be skipping them all, so don't forget to back up your original file.

Demarest

Hmm. I only have a main.sc in my data folder.I have a main.scm in data/scripts. Is this the one to overwrite or is there perhaps a fundamental difference in the UK and US versions?

Not sure where you got those instructions... which is a good thing because I came to realize that I apparently skipped instructions. The readme has been updated to include that. So thanks for bringing that to my attention. If I did at any point say just the /data/ folder, it's out of habit as that's where GTA3 and VC kept theirs. It wasn't until SA that there was a /script/ folder.

QUOTE (Mutha4ka @ Sep 10 2006, 07:15)

Okay, just as a quick follow-up by way of bug-testing contribution;I notice that I only have 120 rounds left in my SMGs, where previously I had 1700.

I understand that this may be in the interest of authenticity but thought it best to mention, in case it's an oversight and may cause a problem for the game if a player has less than 1500 rounds or whatever.

If it's intentional then don't mind me. Just tryin' to help a playa out.

[edit] Ah no, I see what's happened. It's switched my Tec-9s for Micro SMGs, so it's defaulted back to a standard clip size. Might want to look at that...

CODE

01B2: give_actor $PLAYER_ACTOR weapon 28 ammo 120

That's part of the original game code, so ANYBODY beating End Of The Line (3) will be left with an Uzi and 120 rounds. If you think that has to do with Mission Passers, I think you misunderstand how it's made. I'm still human, so it will be possible to forget things. But I don't actively ADD anything, so you'll never have to worry about things being changed. Not looking to rewrite the game, just help unstick people

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 10 2006, 07:24)

Dem, you shouldn't ask which missions are difficult and which are not. Everybody has a different style and approach things differently.

In Vice City, do you know what the hardest mission is? Dildo Dodo. I can tell you the next 2 or 3 as well. Just as I can tell you the most commonly missed UJ is 18 with 24 as a strong second. This has nothing to do with style, it has to do with statistics. SNP was originally intended to help me gather VC experience so that I'd be more qualified to release a Timetwister for it. Yes, it helps people, but it also had nifty side effect of correlating statistics on what people found most challenging. Not all the requests have been for toughies though. There've been a few simply because they were boring. And they've all been filled.

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 10 2006, 07:24)

Personally I think you should make the mission passer available for all missions, even the Big Smoke and Sweet and Kendl ones (if you wan't to test the new stuff a scm has like PLPyntons blow me away mod it is boring having to escape the Ballas again and again)

You know, a simple "Big Smoke please" would've sufficed. Think you're the only person that hates having to sit through that every time? Especially when you consider it's not one of those missions where you can warp here, shoot this, warp there, etc.

To set out to make any mod that essentially rewrites the entire game is a BIG project. Meanwhile, I've got Timetwister SA underway, I've released 5 mods in the last week, etc... Maybe it's easier for me on my way to a full blown Time Vault to do a few missions at a time, eh? It's not like I've let any request go unanswered. And you know what? No sooner than I did NOE and Freefall for example, I watched a run on those same missions. So those who requested them did well in pointing out those that are statistically frequently asked for.

On a side note, when you're just fixing to test a script mod out, using a stripped SCM will save you tons of time

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 10 2006, 07:24)

PS: When I play SA I have 4 programs running alongside it. Pizzadox for the unlimited sprint, health, ammo, oxygen etc. , a car spawner, the teleporter and the CamHack (cuz when I play 1280x1024 CJ gains a few inches and loses some pounds ). With the first three progs you can pass most of the missions easily, as well as test modified cars without scanning the city for them .

Half of that can be done with a few lines in the above mentioned stripped SCM I'm a developer, so when it comes to tricks on how to get to things fastest, I'm pretty experienced. Feel free to PM me for more tips.

Mutha4ka

Hmm. I only have a main.sc in my data folder.I have a main.scm in data/scripts. Is this the one to overwrite or is there perhaps a fundamental difference in the UK and US versions?

Not sure where you got those instructions... which is a good thing because I came to realize that I apparently skipped instructions. The readme has been updated to include that. So thanks for bringing that to my attention. If I did at any point say just the /data/ folder, it's out of habit as that's where GTA3 and VC kept theirs. It wasn't until SA that there was a /script/ folder.

Well, I checked the readme and as you say, there weren't any instructions, so I checked the page linked in the OP.

QUOTE

Backup your /data/main.scm by renaming it to something like mainORIGINAL.scm. Now put the SCM file from the Tool's ZIP into your data folder and rename it to main.scm like the original was.

Hope that helps.

QUOTE (Demarest @ Sep 10 2006, 12:40)

QUOTE (Mutha4ka @ Sep 10 2006, 07:15)

Okay, just as a quick follow-up by way of bug-testing contribution;I notice that I only have 120 rounds left in my SMGs, where previously I had 1700.

I understand that this may be in the interest of authenticity but thought it best to mention, in case it's an oversight and may cause a problem for the game if a player has less than 1500 rounds or whatever.

If it's intentional then don't mind me. Just tryin' to help a playa out.

[edit] Ah no, I see what's happened. It's switched my Tec-9s for Micro SMGs, so it's defaulted back to a standard clip size. Might want to look at that...

CODE

01B2: give_actor $PLAYER_ACTOR weapon 28 ammo 120

That's part of the original game code, so ANYBODY beating End Of The Line (3) will be left with an Uzi and 120 rounds. If you think that has to do with Mission Passers, I think you misunderstand how it's made. I'm still human, so it will be possible to forget things. But I don't actively ADD anything, so you'll never have to worry about things being changed. Not looking to rewrite the game, just help unstick people

I know next to diddly about how Mission Passers works, hence my mistake. Like you, I'm just trying to help. I know how easy it is to overlook something and just happened to notice this small thing, so I thought to point it out. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the game crashed out on me when I completed it properly, so all I had to compare against was my pre-mission save.

Backup your /data/main.scm by renaming it to something like mainORIGINAL.scm. Now put the SCM file from the Tool's ZIP into your data folder and rename it to main.scm like the original was.

a quick suggestion: rather than renaming your main.scm file, simply create 2 directories in your script directory. name one 'original main.scm' and the other 'time passers main.scm' or something similar and place copies of each main.scm in the proper folder. then simply copy and paste whenever you need to swap. that way you don't have to keep renaming files, which could be a pain if you use mission passers a lot. doing it this way also helps make sure you have a copy of the original safely stored away. perhaps someone will write a quick script change program like rubregg's that will work for mission passers.

-/TNT\-

Hey, Dem, I didn't mean to piss you off. If it seemed like that I do apologize. I didn't know the mass of stuff you had to do to make the mission passers. I sure respect the things you have offered the GTA community.

So as not to fall out of old traditions a questions is added : Why is everything stretched skywards a bit when I play with 1280x1024?

Hey, thanks for that. I'm not sure how necessary the script.img is, but that's the point: I don't actually know. Any links to where the differences are discussed? From what I've gathered thus far, the main.scm is just 4 lines off. I'll have to look into it.

QUOTE (quartet1977 @ Sep 10 2006, 10:26)

a quick suggestion: rather than renaming your main.scm file, simply create 2 directories in your script directory. name one 'original main.scm' and the other 'time passers main.scm' or something similar and place copies of each main.scm in the proper folder. then simply copy and paste whenever you need to swap. that way you don't have to keep renaming files, which could be a pain if you use mission passers a lot. doing it this way also helps make sure you have a copy of the original safely stored away. perhaps someone will write a quick script change program like rubregg's that will work for mission passers.

Hey, you are preaching to the choir. Back in the day when Misison Passers was thought to be needed as one file per mission, I released them with batch files that would actually do all the renaming for you. You'd be surprised how much that step meant to help people and actually ended up estranging people. So I'll leave file management to the end user and just provide instructions with strong urges to backup.

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 10 2006, 10:39)

Hey, Dem, I didn't mean to piss you off.

Piss me off? Hardly. I just thought it was pretty clear that the aim of this project was to develop to a full blown Time Vault.

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 10 2006, 10:39)

I didn't know the mass of stuff you had to do to make the mission passers.

In all honesty, there's not THAT much to do. For missions like Yay Ka-Boom-Boom, you have to be sure not to forget to include stuff like the blown up factory. Otherwise, it's mostly pruning the bulk of the mission code and leaving that which represents the cutscenes (SA), the various behind the scenes items required for the story to progress, and any/all necessary cleanup. While it's not the hardest of things (in MOST missions), it's still the fact that there are so many missions. Then because I have a reputation for quality work, I load it up in a test bed and test it in game. Then before re-release, I'll load up saves from those points in the game and test them "in real life". Again, not hard, just time consuming. Doing it a little bit at a time helps keep it rolling.

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 10 2006, 10:39)

So as not to fall out of old traditions a questions is added : Why is everything stretched skywards a bit when I play with 1280x1024?

Not exactly a Mission Passers question, eh? But the answer is simple math. MOST resolutions are 4:3 and 1280x1024 is 5:4. Hence the apparent distortion.

[EDIT]Okay, now the download comes with a main.scm and readme.txt like before, but it ALSO has a folder explicitly saying v2 users only. That's my proposed Mission Passers for v2 users. As I do not have v2, I cannot test this myself and need somebody to test it for me. To test, you only need to load a save. If it loads a save, it works, though you're more than welcome to try passing a mission for free if it suits you. Nothing says you have to save. Meanwhile, if you are a v2 user, please check in. Thank you.